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Roderick Jaynes

Posted by Hedwig on September 4, 2008

I saw Burn After Reading this morning. And while I cannot write about it until my filmtotaal review is published several weeks from now, I did not want to deprive you of this tidbit from my press pack about the Coens’ faithful collaborator:

RODERICK JAYNES (editor)

Roderick Jaynes began his career minding the tea cart at Shepperton Studios in the 1930s. The U.K. native eventually moved into the editing department, where he worked on some of the British film industry’s more marginal features from the 1950s and ’60s.

With the demise of the Carry On series, he retired from film editing, only to emerge from retirement to work on Joel and Ethan Coen’s first feature Blood Simple. He has since worked on most of their films.

Mr. Jaynes resides in Hove, Sussex, with his chow Otto. He remains widely admired in the film industry for his impeccable grooming and is the world’s foremost collector of Margaret Thatcher nudes, many of them drawn from life.

sarcastigsaid

I liked it. Quite a bit. However… I think I’ll probably like it more the second time. It’s similar to the Big Lebowski that way, though thematically, it has a surprising amount of things in common with No Country For Old Men. Ok, well, one, but that’s more than I expected.

Also, J.K. Simmons is a comedy God. I knew that already, of course, but he has two scenes in this and he blows them both out of the park. And I don’t think Brad Pitt had as much fun in a role since, I dunno, True Romance.

But yeah, this time, there were quite a few minute-long stretches without laughs, which admittedly is ok from the Coens, but for a comedy, it’s a bit thing. I suspect, though, that I’ll laugh more the second time, once I don’t have to pay attention to the plot any more, and once I’m prepared for the tonal shifts.

You’re saying all the right things here. I also took another viewing to really warm up to Lebowski.

As I just finished saying to your comment at LiC, it’s all about the dialogue and it doesn’t always hit me as funny until later when I start repeating it. I didn’t laugh that much the first time I saw Raising Arizona, but it’s endlessly repeatable and makes me laugh to this day.